Last fall, when I was zealously researching what one tends to learn in second grade, I was able to check off all the suggested history/social studies topics as ones we had already studied in either kindergarten or first grade, with the exception of one: War of 1812. I gave up the notion awhile ago that we were going to study history in any kind of chronologically way this first pass around–we’ve skipped around so much based on what AJ was interested in at the time. I figure we will study all of these again as he gets older, and maybe in a more orderly fashion (or not), but for now, whichever way the wind blows….
So the War of 1812 was on our chalkboard for awhile as a possible topic. We have been doing a lot of more geographically based themes lately, and although this was still in the social studies realm, AJ is always up for studying a war. I could remember almost nothing about the War of 1812, except for maybe that catchy song (“In 1814 they took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the Mighty Mississip…”). Side note: songs as learning tools rock. Think about how many of those catchy little songs are stuck in your brain after all these years.
I admitted to AJ that I didn’t know much about the War of 1812, and that we were going to have to learn it together as I put the lesson plans together for the week. I found a lap book unit online, but it was very dense, even moreso than AJ would be interested in, so we ditched that idea and decided to just see what we could find. The War of 1812 was a pretty short war, as these things go, which made it more manageable to break down into a week or so of learning.
We found exactly 3 books:
The final book (Francis Scott Key: Poet and Patriot) was WAY too dense for us. I actually found it on our bookshelf in the Schoolroom (and was quite proud of myself that I just happened to have such a thing), but it was really just way more than any normal person would want to know about Mr. Francis Scott Key, unless they were writing a term paper on him. We chose just one chapter of that one and felt quite informed about the Star Spangled Banner after that. So much so that AJ took on his own:
I thought he did an excellent job with this. He is not crafty–at ALL–and I was pretty jazzed about the writing on this, if you want to know. Given the daily blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into getting this kid to write legibly, this is a total win. And yes, there are the correct number of stars and stripes on this for the time of the War of 1812.
We bounced around to a lot of different sources this week. We found this website, which was nothing short of awesome:
http://mrnussbaum.com/war1812/
So if you do nothing else in your study of the War of 1812, you should just go to that website. Mr. Nussbaum did a pretty amazing job–the website is interactive and by far the best thing we found. You can scroll over the different battlegrounds and read about the battles that took place, there’s actually a reading comprehension quiz (timed) that was great. AJ is a whiz at reading comprehension–in an almost scary way. I was grading papers while he was doing this particular activity, and there were a few questions on the quiz that I thought had different answers than he seemed to think they did. He didn’t miss a single question (and I’m pretty sure this was aimed at middle school kids), but I missed several. So the conclusion here is either that he is smarter than I am, or that his young, spongy brain has more room for knowledge on the War of 1812 (I’m going with that one).
PBS also had a quite a bit on the War of 1812:
http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/home/
It really was an interesting story. AJ loved the American Revolution, and this was basically the American Revolution, Part II. He found it interesting that the British were trying to back the Native Americans to oppose the U.S. expansion. And that the British were splitting their attention with their skirmish with Napoleon. AJ is very into Napoleon, so I anticipate this will need to be on our list for third grade history. He was also jazzed the USS Constitution made an appearance–we saw this in Boston a few years ago (Old Ironsides!) and the fact that it thwarted the powerful British navy was pretty interesting.
USS Constitution (okay, not really, but we decided it would work…)
Also raising our interest was the appearance of James Madison (and Dolly). We read an interesting story (that was half fiction, half nonfiction) about how the Dolly Madison (0r her slave, depending on the account you want to believe) saved the portrait of George Washington from the White House. Then, the burning of Washington, D.C. was fascinating (I predict a trip to D.C. soon as well). Shortly after, AJ declared that when he was old enough to get a tattoo, it was going to be a tattoo of James Madison, standing in the burning town of Washington, D.C. I would have put my money on Lincoln. So you just never know.
AJ reading about Madison
Andrew Jackson was also featured this week, and if you can learn more about 2 presidents, that’s a good week around here.
The conclusion of the War of 1812 was pretty non-impressive. Nobody won. The Treaty of Ghent basically gave everybody back what they had before the war. Huh. That was sort of anti-climatic….
The Schoolhouse 